In my house we do around 30 min of math and 30 min of language arts everyday. We have 2 days for science, 2 days for history and 1 day for geography per week. That can take us from 30 minutes to 1 hour if the kids are really interested and if we have related science projects. Altogether it takes us 1h30 to 2 hours and we finish well before lunch time (and we don't wake up very early...) Anything else is child led and optional. Just leave it as an option. I have kids doing all sort of things in their free time, from programming and robotics to drawing, piano, etc. Just make sure it's available. I don't know, maybe I'm a little too unschooler for a classical education forum 😅

Since she likes Harry Potter she will probably like anything by Rick Riordan to. Starting with Percy Jackson.

My kids like these Science Comics. They're a lot less "horrible" but still fun. These Max Axiom comics are for science good too.

From K-2 we kept it very basic, simple USA and world geography, continents and different biomes, basic animal classification, water cycle, different planets, that sort of thing. Just by reading fun books and experiments. I decided to start SOTW and a proper science curriculum in 3rd grade.

I'm not the best source of musical education sadly. I did buy a keyboard on a whim and tried having my son take a class with a nice local teacher... It did not go well. It's been more than a year and he still goes "Remember that time mom put me in piano classes?" He thought it was so boring. But now the tables have turned because my new 8yo foster daughter loves music. She says she wants to be a singer/actress/celebrity (her words). She was so excited when she saw the keyboard. I set her up with Simply Piano since we're not doing live classes right now, but it's definitely something I'm considering for her future, as well as singing classes (this girl is always singing). Are piano/singing online classes a thing? They must be, I need to research that 🙂 For music appreciation I did try to start a tradition to read poetry or listen to music while the kids eat their afternoon snack (my kids don't do tea, it's more like poetry/chocolate milk time around here. Very sophisticated). It doesn't always work, these kids will eat so fast and go back running to their legos and outdoor activities. But when it does happen I do have some resources we like. I got these Great Musicians cds. We have this Usborne book on composers we use to learn a little bit more about them. I also recently got this Hip Hop book and this book called Feel the Beat which features rhythms from around the world as well in an effort to diversify our books and show that not all good music was made by white European men (very much needed even before but especially now since my foster daughter is African American). I just really love books, and the ones I've mentioned come with CDs as well. My idea of education (besides our 4 basic subjects) it's just rotating the books I display for the kids and hope they pick it up and learn something from it 😂 I've read good things about Squilt, but my kids interest is just not there for a whole curriculum.

Usborne has some great art books for kids, if you want something more casual and not so "curriculum like". I really like the Art Treasury, it introduces famous paintings and then it has step by step tutorials for the kids to do their own artwork inspired by that artist. That's basically all I do for art (I'm not a very artistic person...😛) We also have The Usborne book of famous artists, this one goes more into the artist's lives and works. I'll usually read from the second book while they work on projects from the first book. Sometimes my kids get really into one artist so we dive deeper (my older boy was obsessed with Leonardo Da Vinci for a while, we read the "Who Was" book for him and a book about his inventions).

We are doing everything at home or online, I'd rather not risk it being around a lot of people right now.

Writeshop has k book, I've never personally used it for K but I do like the older books. My daughter also loves these Eeboo story cards and the Tall tales game. These are not necessary by any means but are a fun addiction (and I'm a sucker for educational games)

My foster daughter was struggling with very basic math (she was in third grade, struggling with addiction and subtraction) and Math-U-See improved her math a lot. She's a visual learner and all the manipulatives help. But I have no experience about the transition from Math-U-See back to school, maybe someone else can help with that.

Thank you for the suggestions you guys, thankfully Prodigy seems to do the trick! I just let her play it while my son does his own math and she loves the screen time. Plus, extra math practice! My son and even my husband have been playing around with it too so it's a win win 🙂 She doesn't mention wanting to do Beast Academy anymore but she does still complain about MUS although it's a lot better because she knows that when she's done with it she can play her game. I'm still considering using Life of Fred as a way to make math more fun for her, has anyone used that curriculum combined with something else? Does it work as just a fun read aloud?

I'd say speech and debate or some sort of public speaking or leadership course might do the trick. It would be better if it were in person so he could be with other teens, my guess is he feels silly reading aloud and tries to be cool and nonchalant 😛 But since we're in the middle of a pandemic, it could work just teaching him about arguments and fallacies and things like that to help him write some sort of speech and get him to read it. I think it should help and it's a nice extracurricular for his records.

We have actual factual evidence of the damage covid can cause to our lungs but people are more worried about "what ifs" with masks.

I'm so tired of people coming with 17923 reasons not to wear a mask. Someone literally told me that's "unhealthy to breathe your own carbon dioxide" the other day when I took my child (we were both wearing masks) to his doctor appointment... Tell that to doctors that wear those masks 12+ hours a day lol How do people come up with this stuff is beyond me lol I have no patience anymore. If you and/or your child can't wear a mask for whatever reason (breathing problems, disabilities or things like autism, believing in bullshit science you read on facebook) then just don't leave your house. It's that simple. Some countries have that as actual law, you get fined if you don't do it. That's the only way to stop the virus. And these people love to say "Oh but if your mask protects you so much why are you worried about me not wearing one?" Maybe it's because the virus will keep spreading between all those not wearing masks? Come on people lol

From one foster mom to another, you got this. Audiobooks are your best friends. Let the kids color or play with legos while they listen to Story of the World or A History of US by Joy Hakin (if you want to do American History). Playdoh for the younger ones work wonders (we use silicone mats for playdoh or paint so it keeps it mostly mess free. The kids learned to keep it on their mats). Any book read by Jim Weiss is a favorite at our house, especially the Greek Mythology ones. Percy Jackon or Harry Potter audiobooks will keep my older kiddos busy for a long time while they play quietly, so I can teach the younger ones. My foster daughter had a lot of gaps in her learning so I took it back to just the basics (maths and language). We're working on a grade below her age to make sure everything's covered. If I feel like she's ready we can always do a summer intensive and get her back to her original grade but I'm not worried about it. Bonding with your new kiddos during this period of welcoming them home is so important and it should come first, education can be second for now.

This year I don't feel comfortable sending my kids to their usual sports so we're doing kids yoga every morning (together with mindfulness exercises) and bike rides a couple times a week (which also doubles as our nature walks). Edit: We've been using https://ladybugyoga.com/ for the kids yoga. Sometimes I'll just let the kids pick up some yoga cards like from this set and we'll do the poses. But there's a channel called Cosmic Kids on youtube as well that might work.